Photography courses...

[jonypatterson]

Hey guys,

I wasn't really sure where to post this question so i thought I would put it here.

Does anyone know of any good photography courses that are available at the minute? I'm trying to find either a good evening course or a distance learning course. I found the OCA Photography course but it is nearly £600 per module...

Any help would be very greatly appreciated.

Warm regards,

Jony

[trevena]

Hi Jony,

I have also been looking for the same (see my post titled "Photography Courses"). I spent hours trawling the internet, and checked out the feedback for the various courses - it was very confusing! Ian gave some helpful suggestions about courses that he attended - they looked very interesting, and I will consider this sort of thing when I am feeling a bit more confident.

In the end I have decided try out the OU 10 week course T189 Digital Photography (£185)starting in May - it looks quite good, not too expensive to take a punt, gets really good feedback and there seems to be quite a good community spirit amoungst its students. It is an on-line course, so I am interested in how it will work out - has anyone else studied this course?

I hope that this helps - let us know how you get on.

Cheers!

Rick

[ianpinion]

Originally Posted by jonypatterson

Hey guys,

I wasn't really sure where to post this question so i thought I would put it here.

Does anyone know of any good photography courses that are available at the minute? I'm trying to find either a good evening course or a distance learning course. I found the OCA Photography course but it is nearly £600 per module...

Any help would be very greatly appreciated.

Warm regards,

Jony

Hi Jony,

What would you like this course to cover and what kind of budget have you limited yourself to? Do you prefer to learn from a book or an interactive dvd or would you prefer it to be a more practical course with one to one tutition?

As Rick has pointed out, I chose to attend a couple of courses that are run by professional photographers, one that only lasted a day and taught me all the basics in a simple to remember format that was reinforced by several practical sessions to help put the theory into practice. The other was a four day course to help me understand a bit more about editing my shots and understanding how I want my finished images to look. Once you've grasped the basics then you can start to explore in more depth what you yourself really want to get out of your photography and discover what you might bring to this art form. I want start to develop my own style, but of course we all tend to see images by other photographers who inspire us and make us wonder how they managed to produce an image the way they did.

So if you'd be kind enough to give us some criteria on which to be getting on with we'll have a look round and make a few suggestions for you.

[ap4a]

I'm in the same boat, the only courses that seem to be local to me appear to be quite low level. I would like to do something at the level of a HNC or HND but I'd have too travel to far for it to be viable. So I may do the OU course - I know a couple of people who have done that course and they've enjoyed it immensely, though they did feel that it may be at too low a level to be worth my while paying for. Which to me means it's aimed at quite a low level. However I still feel it would/may be worthwhile as the curriculum does aim to push for creativity as well as technical competence, and if it provokes new ideas then it would be a good thing IMO.

[flake]

I think as a starter you should look to your local adult learning centre which run evening classes organised by the local authority. City and Guilds have a range of courses from level 1 (beginner) to level 3 which is believed by some to be worth more than a degree because of the hands on practical and theoretical knowledge needed. (you have to be able to calculate hyperfocal distance).

Costs should be reasonable as should access, the only issue is that the courses run for 12 months at a time and most start around September time, although there are those who run courses from Easter.